love with our new cousin; for she entertains me a deal, when she comes home, with what cousin Sally does, and what cousin Sally says, what a good contriver she is, and the like. I believe it might be of service to me, in the matter of getting in my debts, if I were to make a voyage to London; but I have not yet determined on it in my own mind, and think I am grown almost too lazy to undertake it. The Indians are gone homewards loaded with presents. In a week or two the treaty with them will be printed, and I will send you one. My love to brother and sister Mecom, and to all inquiring friends. I am your dutiful son, B. FRANKLIN. 88. TO MRS. ABIAH FRANKLIN1 HONOURED MOTHER, Philadelphia, October 16, 1749. This has been a busy day with, your daughter, and she is gone to bed much fatigued and cannot write. I send you enclosed one of our new Almanacs. We print them early, because we send them to many places far distant. I send you also a moidore enclosed, which please to accept towards chaise hire, that you may ride warm to meetings this winter. Pray tell us what kind of a sickness you have had in Boston this summer. Besides the measles and flux, which have carried off many children, we have lost some grown persons, by what we call the Yellow Fever; though that is almost, if not quite over, thanks to God, who has preserved all our family in perfect health. 1 From "A Collection of Familiar Letters of Benjamin Franklin," Boston, 1833, p. 16. Here are cousins Coleman, and two Folgers, all well. Your granddaughter is the greatest lover of her book and school, of any child I ever knew, and is very dutiful to her mistress as well as to us. I doubt not but brother Mecom will send the collar, as soon as he can conveniently. My love to him, sister, and all the children. I am your dutiful son. B. FRANKLIN. 1 89. TO WILLIAM STRAHAN 1 (P. C.) Philad Oct. 23, 1749. DEAR SIR I hope before this can reach you, your Parliament will have met and ordered Payment of what has been so long due on Acc' of the Canada Expedition. In the Settling our Acc I will make you a reasonable Allowance for the Disappointment occasioned by the Delay of my Son's Bill. J. Read has remov'd into a House of less Rent, which I was well pleas'd with. I have had no Talk with him lately about your Affair, but still hope for the best; and it shall not be long before I take an Opportunity of urging him to discharge some Part of the Bond. I am now engag'd in a new public Affair as you will see by the enclos'd, which I hope with God's Blessing will very soon be in good Train. I have laid aside my Intention of seeing England, and believe I shall execute it next year, if nothing extraordinary occurs, for which your Conversation is not one of the least Pleasures I propose to myself. I hope this will find you and good Mrs. Strahan safe re 1 This letter is in the possession of Mr. Alfred T. White, Brooklyn. turn'd from your northern Journey. I am just setting out on one, and I have only time to add, that I am, with great Esteem and sincere Affection, Dr Sir, Your most obliged humble Serv B. FRANKLIN. P. S. Please to give my Acc C for what you receave by the enclos'd Power of Attorney. And let me know the Sum that I may pay the Person here. 90. PREFACE TO POOR RICHARD IMPROVED: 1750 TO THE READER The Hope of acquiring lasting Fame, is, with many Authors, a most powerful Motive to Writing. Some, tho' few, have succeeded; and others, tho' perhaps fewer, may succeed hereafter, and be as well known to Posterity by their Works, as the Antients are to us. We Philomaths, as ambitious of Fame as any other Writers whatever, after all our painful Watchings and laborious Calculations, have the constant Mortification to see our Works thrown by at the End of the Year, and treated as mere waste Paper. Our only Consolation is, that short-lived as they are, they outlive those of most of our Contemporaries. Yet, condemned to renew the Sisyphean Toil, we every Year heave another heavy Mass up the Muses Hill, which never can the Summit reach, and soon comes tumbling down again. This, Kind Reader, is my seventeenth Labour of the Kind. Thro' thy continued Good-will, they have procur'd me, if no Bays, at least Pence; and the latter is perhaps the better of the two; since 'tis not improbable that a Man may receive more solid Satisfaction from Pudding, while he is living, than from Praise, after he is dead. In my last, a few Faults escap'd; some belong to the Author, but most to the Printer: Let each take his Share of the Blame, confess, and amend for the future. In the second Page of AUGUST I mention'd 120 as the next perfect Number to 28; it was wrong, 120 being no perfect Number; the next to 28 I find to be 496. The first is 6; let the curious Reader, fond of mathematical Questions, find the fourth. In the 2d Page of March, in some Copies, the Earth's Circumference was said to be nigh 4000, instead of 24000 Miles, the Figure 2 being omitted at the Beginning. This was Mr. Printer's Fault; who being also somewhat niggardly of his Vowels, as well as profuse of his Consonants, put in one Place, among the Poetry, mad instead of made, and in another wrapp'd instead of warp'd; to the utter demolishing of all Sense in those Lines, leaving nothing standing but the Rhime. These and some others, of the like kind, let the Readers forgive, or rebuke him for, as to their Wisdom and Goodness shall seem meet: For in such Cases the Loss and Damage is chiefly to the Reader, who, if he does not take my Sense at first Reading, 'tis odds he never gets it; for ten to one he does not read my Works second Time. Printers indeed should be very careful how they omit a Figure or a Letter: For by such Means sometimes a terrible Alteration is made in the Sense. I have heard, that once, in a new Edition of the Common Prayer, the following Sentence, We shall all be changed in a Moment, in the Twinkling of an Eye; by the Omission of a single Letter, became, We shall all be hanged in a Moment, &c., to the no small Surprize of the first Congregation it was read to. May this Year prove a happy One to Thee and Thine, is the hearty Wish of, Kind Reader, Thy obliged Friend SIR, R. SAUNDERS. (v.) 91. TO JARED ELIOT1 I have perused your two Essays on Field Husbandry,' and think the publick may be much benefited by them; but, if the Farmers in your neighbourhood are as unwilling to leave the beaten road of their Ancestors as they are near me, it will be difficult to persuade them to attempt any improvement. Where the cash is to be laid out on a probability of a return, they are very Averse to the running any risque at all, or even Expending freely, where a Gentleman of a more Publick Spirit has given them Ocular Demonstration of the Success. About eighteen months ago, I made a Purchase of about three hundred Acres of Land near Burlington, and resolved to improve it in the best and Speediest manner, that I might be Enabled to indulge myself in that kind of life, which was most agreeable. My fortune, (thank God,) is such that I can enjoy all the necessaries and many of the Indulgencies of Life; but I think that in Duty to my children I ought so to manage, that the profits of my Farm may Ballance the loss 1 The date of this letter is uncertain but it must have been written in 1749. The original is in the Library of Yale University. 2 "An Essay upon Field Husbandry in New England, as it is or may be ordered," by Jared Eliot, M.A., New London, 1748. A continuation of the Essay appeared in 1749. — ED. |